While the likelihood of Apple releasing new iPhones this year is all but certain, a discussion between analysts and Apple's top brass has also dropped clues that the iPhone's pricing may not be static this year.

Toni Sacconaghi of Bernstein Research mentions in a research note that a discussion with Apple COO Tim Cook, CFO Petter Oppenheimer and worldwide marketing senior VP Phil Schiller point both to an upgrade to the touchscreen device as well as to the possibility of "different pricing/price points" this year, with Cook "examining iPhone's business model" for possible changes.

Cook and Schiller in particular have teased a "very exciting" 2009 for iPhones.

What these possible price changes would entail isn't divulged by the Apple executives, although Sacconaghi is quick to dampen rumors of an iPhone nano or a similar low-budget cellphone. Without naming any one of the executives as a source, he gathers from his investigations that the company isn't presently chasing such a concept.

Any future iPhone, he says, will probably have at least a web browser and access to the App Store, the latter of which has Cook, Oppenheimer and Schiller particularly "bullish" about the iPhone's success as it gives Apple an advantage over rival smartphone makers.

The firm's leaders are also adamant that iPhones won't come with hardware keyboards. A fixed set of keys reportedly makes it harder to implement different keyboards, such as for different languages, and would also make it harder for third-party developers hoping to use their own custom control schemes. Using the touchscreen as the primary input improves Apple's bottom line by letting it ship what's essentially the same phone across many different regions, the executives say.

No matter the changes to Apple's iPhone pricing structure, such a move wouldn't be uncharacteristic of the Cupertino, Calif. electronics giant. Each year of the iPhone's existence has had at least one major price shakeup: the iPhone's maximum price fell from $599 to $399 in 2007, while the iPhone 3G in 2008 not only reduced this top price to $299 but switched the behind-the-scenes profit model from revenue sharing with carriers to a heavy device subsidy.

But the Apple TV's position is considerably less optimistic, Sacconaghi warns. After his talk with the senior staffers, he understands that Apple views "lots of barriers" for the networkable media hub and doesn't see it as a current business cornerstone like it does iPhones, iPods and Macs.

Not to downplay the company's prospects, though, the Bernstein researcher says the management team is maintaining an "unwavering" level of belief in its guidance for the January-to-March quarter even as it has no intention of cutting prices; the upgraded plastic MacBook is selling well but is still being outsold by its more expensive aluminum cousins, according to the executives, who also see a lot of headroom in computer market share.

While Sacconaghi doesn't make many predictions, he repeats frequent expectations of an iPhone in summer and also believes Apple may update the iMac in March.

I love how mail now integrates with exchange server..
I am having some issues with blue tooth today for some reason.

they say it takes 15 min to install, and that was not true on my install, it took forever.

64 bit is nice...its nice to know my CPU is fully used to its potential.

Yeah I'm excited for the entire 64bit change over although leopard had it partially or something right? Anyway, are there any changes to Finder? Dual window panes, cut/paste? I like PathFinder but I'm the kind of guy that likes to use OEM software/programs rather than 3rd party if needed..

oh new imacs, that means they may have some good deals to get rid of the current ones.

__________________
"The Americans on this Island are not ordinary troops, but Marines, a special force recruited from jails and insane asylums for blood lust."
"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."
"I'm a citizen, this is my President. And in this country it is not only permissible to question our leaders it's our responsibility! "

New airport too!!!! it can run 2 different wifi points from one router and it has both 2.4 and 5ghz... Airport is the fucking king of routers!!!!!!! <3

Mac Pros, or the MBP. Seems weird for them to mess with the MBP when they just came out a month ago.

__________________
"The Americans on this Island are not ordinary troops, but Marines, a special force recruited from jails and insane asylums for blood lust."
"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."
"I'm a citizen, this is my President. And in this country it is not only permissible to question our leaders it's our responsibility! "

New airport too!!!! it can run 2 different wifi points from one router and it has both 2.4 and 5ghz... Airport is the fucking king of routers!!!!!!! <3

Mac Pros, or the MBP. Seems weird for them to mess with the MBP when they just came out a month ago.

they always upgrade the processors every 4-6 months so its common. they were just quiet as shit this time.

Ah ok. My wife got her update email from apple about the imacs, then I read the new specs to her. She wants to go look this weekend at a new 24"

__________________
"The Americans on this Island are not ordinary troops, but Marines, a special force recruited from jails and insane asylums for blood lust."
"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."
"I'm a citizen, this is my President. And in this country it is not only permissible to question our leaders it's our responsibility! "

New airport too!!!! it can run 2 different wifi points from one router and it has both 2.4 and 5ghz... Airport is the fucking king of routers!!!!!!! <3

Mac Pros, or the MBP. Seems weird for them to mess with the MBP when they just came out a month ago.

they always upgrade the processors every 4-6 months so its common. they were just quiet as shit this time.

Ah ok. My wife got her update email from apple about the imacs, then I read the new specs to her. She wants to go look this weekend at a new 24"

im pretty sure the specced out 24" is THE best bang for your buck you can buy when it comes to apple

Well hell the $1500 model with 4 gigs of ram and 640gig hard drive would be enough for us.

I down loaded Safari 4, I have more pros than cons, but the big con for me is still the tab browsing. I would LOVE it if I could set it up that I can just left click a link and it opens a new tab in the background. I hate having to Apple+click, or right click - open in new tab.

And can anybody help me with my wife's powerbook?

__________________
"The Americans on this Island are not ordinary troops, but Marines, a special force recruited from jails and insane asylums for blood lust."
"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."
"I'm a citizen, this is my President. And in this country it is not only permissible to question our leaders it's our responsibility! "

Cydia has been the hub of the iPhone gray market for some time now, but developer Jay Freeman is planning on turning the jailbroken app manager into a questionably licit competitor to the App Store.

Converting Cydia into a proper application store won't be complicated, and more or less amounts to Freeman adding a centralized payment service to the software. His competitive ambitions, though, aren't so subtle: He told the WSJ that "the overworking goal is to provide choice" and that he plans on match or beat Apple's commission for downloaded apps.

Paid apps are currently available in Cydia, but purchase has to be arranged on an app-by-app basis, usually through unwieldy product key schemes or PayPal. While a centralized Cydia payment system would make purchasing apps such as Snapture and PDAnet simpler and could breed innovation for potentially useful nonsanctioned apps, but it also provides a single, unified target for Apple should they decide to start hurling lawyers at the jailbreak scene. Though the company hasn't specifically responded to this announcement, it'd be naive to think they won't: in effect, Freeman, who has already hired a lawyer, has just announced that he plans on making money on a process that Apple claimed to be totally illegal just a few weeks ago. Good luck?

New airport too!!!! it can run 2 different wifi points from one router and it has both 2.4 and 5ghz... Airport is the fucking king of routers!!!!!!! <3

Mac Pros, or the MBP. Seems weird for them to mess with the MBP when they just came out a month ago.

they always upgrade the processors every 4-6 months so its common. they were just quiet as shit this time.

Ah ok. My wife got her update email from apple about the imacs, then I read the new specs to her. She wants to go look this weekend at a new 24"

im pretty sure the specced out 24" is THE best bang for your buck you can buy when it comes to apple

Well hell the $1500 model with 4 gigs of ram and 640gig hard drive would be enough for us.

I down loaded Safari 4, I have more pros than cons, but the big con for me is still the tab browsing. I would LOVE it if I could set it up that I can just left click a link and it opens a new tab in the background. I hate having to Apple+click, or right click - open in new tab.

And can anybody help me with my wife's powerbook?

Can you not press the mouse button 3 on the link? Use the scroll wheel on the mouse to open links in new tabs.

We just got the announcement, iPhone OS 3.0 is coming. Set your clocks, mark your calendars. It's going down March 17th. Apparently, we'll get a sneak peak at the new OS, as well as a look at a brand new version of the SDK. Exciting stuff indeed, and we'll be there live at 10am PST (1pm EST) with the liveblog. Apple's calling this an "advance preview of what we're building," so we're not expecting anything ready to go as of the 17th, but hopefully this will allow developers to start building toward future functionality (hey, how about some push notifications?), and presumably users won't have too many months to wait after that for the real deal.

WTF?! I go to install the Mini Displayport to VGA adapter firmware update and all hell breaks loose. The computer beeps, restarts, restarts again then just shows a flashing folder with a question mark in it.

Running the disk utilities now to make sure nothing major (i.e. hard drive failure) is wrong. Not how I wanted to spend my morning. I hadn't backed my data up since I installed this HDD last week either. Know for damn sure I'm doing it once these utilities are done and if everything is OK.

WTF?! I go to install the Mini Displayport to VGA adapter firmware update and all hell breaks loose. The computer beeps, restarts, restarts again then just shows a flashing folder with a question mark in it.

Running the disk utilities now to make sure nothing major (i.e. hard drive failure) is wrong. Not how I wanted to spend my morning. I hadn't backed my data up since I installed this HDD last week either. Know for damn sure I'm doing it once these utilities are done and if everything is OK.

just did it on mine...its gonna make the loud beep, make sure that the mini dvi is plugged into the macbook AND hooked up to a monitor...

WTF?! I go to install the Mini Displayport to VGA adapter firmware update and all hell breaks loose. The computer beeps, restarts, restarts again then just shows a flashing folder with a question mark in it.

Running the disk utilities now to make sure nothing major (i.e. hard drive failure) is wrong. Not how I wanted to spend my morning. I hadn't backed my data up since I installed this HDD last week either. Know for damn sure I'm doing it once these utilities are done and if everything is OK.

just did it on mine...its gonna make the loud beep, make sure that the mini dvi is plugged into the macbook AND hooked up to a monitor...

it took me 2 times to figure it out...but it works fine now..

Once I'm done with the disk utilities, I'll give the update another go. This worked out since it seemed I needed to repair my disk permissions anyway.

edit: I'm good to go now. Update is installed and HDD is fine too. Still have some permissions issues though; the utility won't fix them though. Any other way?

OSX will have a few permissions that remain that way, chances are they wont affect the os in any way and you will be fine

It was Front Row, iTunes and a couple other things. Havent had any issues yet, so didnt figure it'd be too big a deal. I just like to see nothing show up in that window though.

I am just like you, and i spent a fucking month searching finding WTF was wrong with my old one, come to find out that its pretty common for permissions in itunes/frontrow anything that has a large library. Along with other things.

If you copy the debug info and google it, usually you can find some fixes. But for mine, i found none and on apple support they said dont worry.

Hell i even tried a fresh install and still had the same permission errors.